Batman is back! After Christopher Nolan’s nearly-perfect The Dark Knight made more money than God last summer, it only made sense that DC Comics cash in on Batman’s image in every way possible. Right now he’s set to invade mainstream media on every platform: comics, television, and, of course, video games.

Batman: Arkham Asylum, is the latest game from Rocksteady Studios and Eidos and Hardcasual was lucky enough to get their hands on it before anyone else. In the game, Batman must fight through the entirety of the notorious loony bin to get his hands on the Joker, who has set all of the inmates free.

I’m sure most of you know already, but lately Eidos has been getting a lot of unfounded flack from the blogosphere for offering an ‘exclusive’ review to magazines in exchange for putting their game on the cover and giving it a score of 90% or higher.

Does this move promote bad journalistic ethics? Absolutely.

Does it make Eidos look like they don’t think their game is any good? You betcha.

Does any of that matter? No!

BECAUSE BATMAN: ARKHAM ASYLUM IS FUCKING AWESOME.

From the minute we fired up the PS3 and took on the role of the caped crusader to the minute we defeated the final boss and those glorious end credits rolled, we had an experience than can only be described as akin to taking Ecstasy while riding on a rocket ship to Mars while getting a blow job from Megan Fox and her two clones.

Batman: Arkham Asylum is equal parts Gears of War, Half Life 2, and Super Mario 3 — with a dash of Final Fantasy 7 tossed in for good measure. It’s the perfect mix of hair-raising action and quiet intrigue, more provocative than a Michael Haneke film and more rewarding than any book by Dostoyevksi. It will henceforth be what all other video games are compared to. The bar has not been raised, it has been strapped to a missile and shot to the moon.

In fact, Batman: Arkham Asylum got us so excited that we decided to go back to some of Eidos’s older games, just like one revisits a director’s first few inspired films after seeing the latest masterpiece.

Back in 1999, we gave Tomb Raider: Last Revelation a four out of ten. We called the gameplay “derivative,” said the ending “made absolutely no sense,” and railed on the “clunky 4 year old engine.” Wow! Harsh words, considering we’re just a bunch of basement-dwelling reporters and have never made a game in our lives!

Boy are we glad we gave that game another chance! It opened up to us like a thousand dollar bottle of wine or a single-malt scotch aged in an oak barrel.  After we finished it for the second time, we decided – for the first time in Hardcasual history – to retroactively bump up the score. It now holds the number 3 position in our illustrious Hall of Fame, knocking Goldeneye out for good. (Finally.)

And let’s not forget Kane and Lynch! What a debacle that was! If you don’t remember, we fired our reviews editor, Jane Gerbstacht*, for giving the game a 9 out of 10 because we were sure that she was being bribed. But now that we’ve gone back and played through the game ourselves, we see that, if anything, Jane was being too critical! Playing Kane and Lynch is like being inside a movie co-directed by Quentin Tarantino and Michael Mann, produced by Steven Spielberg, and written by Jesus Christ.

We’re so excited for Kane and Lynch: Dog Days that we whipped up our own advertisement and plastered it all over our site, free of charge.

We highly suggest you pre-order your copy of Batman: Arkham Asylum today. It provides endless hours of enjoyment for you and your friends, perhaps the first game to be infinitely re-playable until the end of time. Once you’ve finished the game for the millionth time, you’ll want to stick it back in its box and put it in a place of honor in the house – such as on the mantle next to the family Bible.

With this difficult economy, we know it’s hard to pick which game you’re going to spend your hard-earned money on. We promise you won’t regret this purchase. And don’t forget: you saw it here on Hardcasual first.

*Sorry, Jane! Hope everything is working out for you at the Livin’ Gluten-Free in Anchorage blog!

[Additional material by guest reviewer Filipe Salgado.]